TWO firefighters from Delabole Community Fire Station were recently commended for their 30 years’ service.

Mark Saltern joined the Delabole Community Fire Station in October 1986 and after eight years’ service became the station manager, and Richard Bluett joined a month later in November and remained a fire fighter and valued member of the crew for 30 years.

Soon after joining they were involved in the station refurbishment in which all the crew demolished and modernised the interior of the station in their spare time.

As a result of the crew’s commitment, the county council expanded the drill yard and erected a drill tower, and a new major fire appliance arrived in 1989.

Thirty years later Mark and Richard are still serving the surrounding communities and will hopefully continue to do so for a few more years yet. They have seen many changes over the years, not only with the equipment carried on the appliances, but they have noticed a reduction in property fires — probably due to the fitting of smoke alarms in homes, and fire safety advice to local communities.

The station deals with all sorts of incidents every year, which include many road traffic collisions, but believe they are reduced due to modern vehicle safety systems.

They were both part of the first crew to attend at Boscastle flood in 2004, where Mark and his crew played a major role in getting people to safety in the early stages of the flood and getting them airlifted from buildings, and the crew was the last to be airlifted on the day.